First let me say that I do not believe that 39.3 million Americans watched the Academy Awards Show from start to finish this year. Ten percent of 39.3 is closer to the truth if that the other 90 % channel surfed in and out. They sure as hell did not stayed tuned in if they surfed in when a commercial was running. The overwhelming majority of Americans did not care enough to look in even for a few minutes. That makes me wonder why advertisers paid $1.7 million for a 30 second spot? NOTE: The televised Academy Awards Show is the largest source of revenue the Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences has: http://www.deadline.com/2011/12/academy-report-paints-a-pretty-picture/#more-208075 The Academy would produce a 24 hour telethon if they thought they could fill that much time with commercials. The 2012 Oscars Daniel Flynn has an interesting critique of the Academy Awards Show that includes this: By Daniel J. Flynn on 3.2.12 @ 6:08AM Don't blame the Oscar show for Tinseltown's utter lack of creativity. http://spectator.org/archives/2012/03/02/hollywood-the-sequel The reference to the 1950 movie Sunset Boulevard is right on the money but for different reasons than Flynn cites. Hollywood is trapped by Norma Desmonds view of motion pictures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wOL70Qn_o4Q The Artist a black and white film that was mostly silent would have made Miss Desmond weep tears of joys. Todays motion picture producers are in the unenviable position of trying to convince millions of people to pay to look at photographs. More often than not the photographs depict automobile chases and explosions. Unfortunately for the motion picture industry the day of the photograph is past. The death of photographic magazines like Life, and Look, apparently went over their heads. Even the INTERNET is more text than picture. Finally, doing away with dialogue might not be a bad idea since so few actors and actresses know how to speak the language anyway. Go to this thread for more about the Oscars and sound: http://www.politicalforum.com/off-topic-chat/154066-oscar-sound.html
